2020 Tesla Model S
This year drew an ordinary 80 complaints for a Tesla Model S — the model's median is 176. What they were about is the unusual part: 7.5% of them mention hood, against 1.7% across the model's other years.
Generation 1 of the Tesla Model S, which began in 2012. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
| Complaints filed | 80 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 176 |
| Involving a crash | 16 |
| Recalls | 11 |
| EPA combined | 109 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- hood — 7.5% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the model's other years (4.3×). Owners wrote it as: hood, pull over.
- crashed — 8.8% of this year's complaints, against 3.3% across the model's other years (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: crashed, sustained.
- nor — 6.3% of this year's complaints, against 2.3% across the model's other years (2.7×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
The front hood flipped open while driving at about 40 miles an hour without any warning, totally obstructing the vision of the driver who happen to be my wife, causing her to pull over suddenly fortunately no one was hurt during the accident. The front hood, h…
When backing up, multiple systems failed at the same time including backup camera, backup sensor distance visuals, backup sensor audio alerts, writing data to flash drive, GPS sensors. Tesla was unable to diagnose the sysfiles to identify the hardware issue be…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 22V037000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 21V00B000 LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES Fixed free of charge.
- 21V846000 FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE Fixed free of charge.
- 22V063000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 22V235000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 22V818000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 23V085000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 23V838000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 11. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Tesla Model S was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2020 Tesla Model S? What happened to yours?
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